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COVID-19 Digest: August 5

COVID-19 Digest: August 5

August 05, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

COVID-19 Digest

Wednesday, August 5, 2020As NYC’s reopening and recovery efforts continue, the digest will focus on the resources that help you make decisions about your businesses and your lives as New Yorkers.

Below and in our resource guide, you’ll find the latest information on government resources for businesses, city and state reopening measures, and return-to-office preparedness plans. If this can be useful to your colleagues and network, encourage them to sign up here.

The Latest in New York

The latest: Mayor de Blasio instituting checkpoints at city entrances to help enforce travel advisory; subway ridership is up, still at 20 percent pre-pandemic capacity; NYC schools now only major education system in the US planning on in-person learning; WeWork gives global access to all members.Confirmed Cases:

New York State: 418,225 (+636)
New York City: 226,581 (+301)
Statewide Fatalities: 25,179 (+4)
Daily NYC Infection Rate: 1.0 percent (no change)

General Updates:

Congressional leaders negotiating the next round of relief funding have agreed to work toward reaching a deal by the end of the week. (New York Times)
A report released by the State Comptroller yesterday indicated that New York lost more than 944,000 jobs in the first two months of the pandemic. (NY State of Politics) Unemployment spiked from 3.4 percent in February to 20.4 percent in June, the highest it’s been in almost five decades.
Mayor de Blasio announced new measures to enforce New York’s travel advisory, including random checkpoints at the city’s major bridge and tunnel crossings and fines of up to $10,000. (POLITICO) Currently travelers from 35 states plus Puerto Rico must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.
Black business ownership in New York — which in February was the highest in the country — fell 70 percent by June, according to a new Federal Reserve Bank report. (Crain’s NY)
One of New York’s eviction moratoriums is set to expire at midnight, allowing at least 14,000 warrants to move forward, almost all of which are related to cases that predate the pandemic. (The Real Deal)
And shoutout to working parents — especially this one, who just happens to be an FTC Commissioner that took the multitasking all parents do these days to a whole new level during a Senate hearing.

One cool interactive: Could My Symptoms Be COVID-19? (New York Times)

Survey

The latest results: While we’ve all been at peak disaster preparedness since March, how did you ready your household for Tropical Storm Isaias?

6.2%: I stocked up on food and essentials.
3.1%: I stocked up and physically protected my apartment/house.
90.7%: I was already stocked up because of COVID-19 / did nothing additional to prepare for the storm.

Today’s poll: With steadily low infection rates and many businesses reopened, New York’s subway ridership has slightly increased. Even so, it remains at 20 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Presumably, many former riders still have apprehensions over public transit and the possibility of being exposed in enclosed, potentially crowded train cars (despite debates over the actual risk). Now five months into the pandemic, how often are you now taking the subway?

*|SURVEY: Daily|*
*|SURVEY: One or more times a week|*
*|SURVEY: One or more times a month|*
*|SURVEY: I still have not returned to the subway since the PAUSE order|*

Find the poll results from all previous editions of this newsletter here.

What You Need to Know

The Latest in Mass Transit:

With NYC’s infection rate remaining steadily low, more people are returning to their old routines, except for when it comes to public transit. (Wall Street Journal) Amidst ongoing fears of enclosed, crowded spaces, subway ridership remains at just 20 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
But new data from major cities around the world indicate that public transportation isn’t as risky as New Yorkers believe. (New York Times)
- Contact tracing studies that tracked new clusters between May and July in Paris, Austria, and Tokyo found that none of them was linked to public transit.
- In New York, the risk factor has remained low, due in largely part to the subway system’s surprisingly robust ventilation system for removing particles from the air. A recent study of more than 220,000 riders also showed that over 90 percent were wearing masks while onboard.
- To avoid superspreader events, New York officials are balancing two goals: drawing as many riders back as possible, generating much-needed revenue for the MTA, while also avoiding the city’s notoriously crowded rush hour. That many residents are continuing to work from home much longer than anticipated has certainly helped mitigate that scenario.
The optimistic reports about returning to the subways and busses is welcome news for experts worried about the potential for a “carmageddon” in the city. (Streetsblog)
- While people are generally traveling less during the pandemic, car usage has increased, with 39 percent of people planning to buy a car and 44 percent preferring to decrease their public transit use. (Marketplace)
- But more cars on the road — especially at a time when more outdoor sidewalk and street dining is popping up to keep restaurants afloat — means more accidents. Vehicles have crashed into outdoor dining areas at least four times so far. (Wall Street Journal)
- Plus, NYC traffic is the coronavirus comeback no one wants. (POLITICO)
One obstacle in the city’s plan to get straphangers back on board: the MTA is staring down a financial crisis. Transportation agencies were left out of the latest stimulus proposal from GOP lawmakers, and without federal help, the MTA may inevitably resort to service cuts and fares hikes. (Axios)
But it’s clear New York can’t fully recover unless mass transit recovers, and investing in improving those systems is the way to get cities moving again. (Bloomberg)
And ICYMI: for more data on how public transportation has fared in NYC throughout the pandemic, this new report from the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation and Sam Schwartz Engineering is very useful.

What to Know: Reopening:

Chicago joined other large cities in deciding to begin the school year fully remote, leaving NYC as the only major school system in the US planning to offer in-person classes. (New York Times) And as those plans evolve, the whole country is watching. (New York Times)
NYC’s Dept. of Education released more details about what students learning remotely should expect in the fall, including daily, live video instruction in short intervals throughout the day and set class schedules. (New York Daily News) This is a departure from the spring semester, during which daily, live instruction was not required and most students completed and submitted assignments independently.
Additionally, the Dept. of Education said that students who show up for in-person instruction without a face covering will be sent back home. (THE CITY)